Monday, 7 December 2015

#InvestInUGchildren Media Tour: Teenage Pregnancy in Arua District

I wrote this on the 5th December 2015 during the UNICEF Uganda Media Tour

It's a humid Saturday morning when we arrive at Bondo Health center in
our air-conditioned land rovers to have a meeting with health workers,
teenage mothers and community members. I enter the stuffy metal tin
roofed meeting room a little late, and find everyone settled on
concrete benches. All eyes are on a young pregnant woman in the corner, I
realise as the discussion is going on that she is not really a full
grown adult woman, she is a pregnant teenage girl. Her hands are shaking
she can barely get a word out of her mouth. Her eyes keep darting
around the room looking for help. Anyone would feel nervous too, imagine
sitting in a room full of strangers while they ask you, "How could you
allow yourself to get pregnant?" "Will you be returning to school once
you've had the baby?" It must be too overwhelming for a young girl like
her, I doubt she ever considered the consequences of her pregnancy. We
continue to ask our questions as though we understand (with our NGO
jargon) what it means to be a girl like her. We ask our questions as
though opportunities in this area are growing and falling off trees like
unwanted over-ripe mangoes. At first she refuses to answer the
questions and others decide to answer for her, They say "Her father
died, Her mother went mad, there is nobody to guide her....." Finally my
boss asks, " What happened to the man who made her pregnant?" There is
some mumbling among the participants which dies down immediately and
then the question is forgotten, and silence returns. Again my boss
insists, "What happened to the man who made her pregnant?" To which
there is silence until one brave middle-aged man stands up and says,
"You see if she lived closer to me I would have advised her like a
daughter to stay away from men, but the children of these days they are
different. What can we do?" He shrugs his shoulders and sits down. He
seems proud of himself thinking he has said what the NGOs want him to
say. But they have still failed to answer the question. This man who
impregnated her has quite simply and quickly been absolved of all
responsibility. By now the young girl has already made her way to the
back the room. Now unrecognizable among the crowd, she can relax and let
them talk as though she isn't there. Eventually my boss asks another
question, "What would the women in this community like to see happen so
that girls are better protected from defilement?" He kindly gestures
towards the women in the room as he talks to the translator. First there
is silence, except for the children playing outside. My boss asks his
question again and some smiles appear on the women's faces. Can you
imagine a man actually ignoring what the men have said and now seeking
their opinion? Then finally one among many is brave enough to stand up
and say, "Here we have no voice. In our community it is the men who make
all the decisions. Even if it is our hardwork that brings in the
income, it makes no difference, for it is the men who decide how to
spend the money, some days you can even fight with your husband to pay
school fees for your children." ‪#‎Arua‬‪#‎InvestInUGchildren‬